Sunday, September 19, 2010

[Alt: I've looked through a few annotated versions of classic books, and it's shocking how much of what's in there is basically pop-culture references totally lost on us now.]

I think this comic has been pretty well destroyed by all you folks in the comments for the previous thread, so I think I can just summarize all the reasons this is terrible -

1) For one thing, the comic isn't exactly pointing out anything new. No, there is no reason to think that. But no one was claiming it, were they? I think if you had asked any of us about this a few days ago, we all would have been perfectly happy to agree that people at all times have had their jokes which make little sense to us now.

2) It's unclear what the inside joke is supposed to be. There's laughter surrounding all the characters, making it seem like each line is supposed to be funny. But the first line makes perfect, non-funny sense on its own: a man is upset about the price of a ham. It's the second one that is intentionally confusing, yet the "ha ha ha"s surround each line, almost like the canned laughter in a sitcom when a character says a boring line, but one is meant to laugh in anticipation of a joke to follow.

3) Regarding the alt-text, where Randall Munroe says he's recently read looked through some "classic" books recently. Are we supposed to be impressed by this? As many people point out, the Shakespeare that nearly everyone reads in high school has lots of annotations explaining the various in jokes (for example, a lot of shakespeare gets noticeably funnier when you learn that "Will" is often supposed to mean "dick"). It also seems like he may be referring to "The Annotated Alice," which is the version of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass that has annotations by the late great Martin Gardner. It's mostly explanations of what the various jokes are in the book.

My point is, none of this is news to the majority of readers. This stunning anthropological discover that Randall has made is made even more comic by the fact that he so, so often insults those people who study history and literature. It's like on the one hand he tells people, "Psh! Literature studies? That's such a fake field. You don't do any real work in that field. you are so worthless. Try studying something important, like science" and then two days later he goes, "woah! if you read these old books more carefully, they're actually way more interesting! Why didn't anyone tell me this??!" And then the lit people smack their heads, again.

Yeah, total agreement pretty much, but I think 7:57 put it a little better.

So are you going to add more posts to the "liberal arts suck, don't they" tag? I hope you do. In the thread for the last post here, I posted the numbers of some comics that fit that tag, but I didn't feel like going back through the blog and putting links to each individual blog post for those comics.

New comic (way to update half an hour late randy) doesn't suck too bad. We get the shitty awkward dialogue that we know and love, but at least the punchline comes at the end of the comic, and is a little amusing. Plus, the art is OK.

I would've preferred the new comic without the caption. In fact, at first I didn't notice the caption, and sat there satisfied at the stick guys stupidity and the almost-subtle joke. Then I read the caption, which basically explains the joke, and I stopped being satisfied.Also, yeah the dialogue is a bit awkward. Fix it, and remove the caption, and, why, I may have outright giggled.

did anyone read the forums on this comic? it's currently 3 pages of "gee Randall, you suck" with some good music suggestions mixed in. It's a nice change from the usual GOOMHR. The fanboys are turning on him.

Hahaha, from the XKCD forums in 794." [Referring to a criticism] I can't stand people who post like this. This guy has posted exactly 5 times on this forum and all 5 of them are condescending criticisms of certain comics. I'm sorry, but is the only reason you made an account here so that you can rip on someone elses hard work? Look, if you honestly have an issue with a comic, you've got every right to not enjoy a particular comic. But, blatantly ripping on someone who clearly has a good thing going and who many people enjoy is just pointless, if you've got no other purpose.

Gamer_2k4, if you think you're so much funnier, (and you're not, based on your posts so far) then feel free to make your own webcomic, and when "Gamer_2k4's comic of awesomeness" is the worlds greatest webcomic, I'll formally apologize. But, until then I think Randall can be forgiven if he chooses to ignore the ranting of an individual poster on his forums.

So, if you don't have anything positive to add to this discussion, (and there's nothing positive in any of your posts; you can't even call them constructive criticsm, you're just bashing him) then please, feel free not to post.

Retsam"

I love this guy! He could stand a visit to this blog, on so many counts, but I'd just like to point out a few things...

1. "I'm sorry, but is the only reason you made an account here so that you can rip on someone elses hard work?"Ahahaha, hard work... Right. And yes, that is probably the only reason he made an account there, what's it to him?

2. "But, blatantly ripping on someone who clearly has a good thing going and who many people enjoy is just pointless, if you've got no other purpose."I hate it when people choose to hail someone simply because they have a "good thing going." He makes it almost sound like Randall is, *gasp*, scamming us! Also, ripping on stuff that many people enjoy with legitimate reasons, or even without, has very distinguishable points. Not the least being for fun.

Yeah, Retsam's whinging on Randall's behalf sounds rather empty. I do hard work for a living myself. Shitty menial labour. And you know what? There is always some bastard at my back berating me and telling me to do a better job and asking me to pick up my game. He also determines whether I retain the job, so I put up with it and even keep my ear open for areas in which I really do need to improve my efforts.

There's no reason why Randall's "hard work" should be entirely free of this aspect of the real world.

I think that if it becomes the norm for every comic to be torn to shreds by the previous comic's comment section, then this blog will have finally achieved its purpose.

As for 795, I read a bunch of old xkcds - it reminds me of those. And I'm looking at the old ones like any other jaded man seeing a fad he thought was the shit in high school and wondering what the hell he was thinking.

capcha: mencinv - someone taking a medication to help with a small lesion in his broca's area trying to tell us what he's doing

Look at that counter! Look at that mothereffing counter! It... it makes no sense whatsoever! Who would make a counter that horrible?!

And their hair! He drew everyone with really badly kept hair and scruffy beards! In a comic where everyone is normally bald or has long straight hair!About the same sort of culture he previously implied couldn't count past two!

And he's only now found out that people in said culture were capable of making culture references and in-jokes!

2. String Theory:Katz - My God, the oldest and most juvenile joke about shit you don't understand. "Man, that Einstein dude was totally stoned when he wrote about relativity, right?" "That Homer dude must've been trippin' one night and wrote an epic poem and shit".Randall - Pretty decent, actually. Implies some esoteric knowledge, which is good.

3. 1999Katz - ...Randall - ...

4. eatingKatz - eh... okRandall - ...

And the result of the duel was that both contestants ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

From that New Yorker article:"Well, I draw XKCD, a webcomic about stick figures who do math, play with staple guns, mess around on the Internet, and have lots of sex. It’s about three-fourths autobiographical."

I give the newest comic a passing grade of 7/10. Would recommend to diehard XKCD fans and perhaps casual readers.

Art: Reasonable, in fact nearly flawless. Since it is a comic and not real life, the inversion of black to white, while simple, conveys everything it needs to. Dark, stormy, "probably wanna be inside," kind of weather.

Joke: On a scale of deadpan to fits of uncontained laughter, this gets about a smile. Deliberately misunderstanding statistics in a witty, mostly original way.

Style: Post punchline dialogue, of sorts. Could be better without caption, but actually does okay with it. Alt Text expands on misunderstood statistics, which is fine by me, as it didn't explain the joke thankfully.

I would think that the sort of person who knows the statistics on deaths by lightning per year would also know the standard safe operating procedure around lightning: stay on the low ground, don't stand under tall things like trees, and don't hold up a golf club. I guess maybe the punchline is that only five of the six statistic-quoters know these basic principles?

The problem is, it's a comic about how bad it is to be smug -- told in a smug fashion. You can practically hear the superiority in the guy's voice as he quotes the stats, and then the caption piles on an extra layer of "but he'll be dead soon, ha ha ha!" It's like some sort of recursive intellectual elitism.

Also, I don't mind the white-on-black effect, but I like it better when he achieves it by actually drawing it instead of just looking up the "invert selection" option on mspaint.

But what's the problem with his Os? In the "BOOM" sound effect, none of them two Os close as they should. It must be deliberate, because he isn't using a font, but... what's the intended effect? It looks shoddy. Really. Just like how his stick figure's head still fails to connect with the body even when it's head is filled and it's incredibly small.

"I would think that the sort of person who knows the statistics on deaths by lightning per year would also know the standard safe operating procedure around lightning"

Well, who knows? I've known the kind of pseudo-intelligent people who only want to know the facts that are convenient to them ("Lightning doesn't kill that much, I'll be fine. What? I'm increasing my risks by staying outside? Oh, I see, EINSTEIN, gonna teach me how to live now?").

I second Fernie. 1 in 6 seems high but it gets the point across. I thought it was sort of funny, but it would have been funnier if it let you realize the joke on your own rather than make it obvious in the caption (as someone already said.)

To those who say the new xkcd would have been funnier without the caption because the caption spoils the joke; I figured out the joke long before I even got to the caption. Sort of went like this: ...Lightning only kills 45 people a year... => This guy is gonna fuck with lightning and get owned. JOKE SOLVED MOVING ON.

" would think that the sort of person who knows the statistics on deaths by lightning per year would also know the standard safe operating procedure around lightning: stay on the low ground, don't stand under tall things like trees, and don't hold up a golf club. I guess maybe the punchline is that only five of the six statistic-quoters know these basic principles?"

never underestimate peoples stupidity. i remeber reading about an anti smoking ad of someone holding up a glof club during a storm saying that they were at less risk then than they were if they smoked

For one, I think the caption should stay. Yes, it's perfectly possible to deduce the joke without it, but the caption actually delivers the punchline in an actually witty way, which is unusual for Randall.

Thanks guys for more tag suggestions. I didn't even try to go through the list, that's why I "missed" so many.

I think Penny Arcade has great art, and, more importantly, funny art. But Achewood's is good too. Nothing special, as it's a lot of copying and pasting (or otherwise computer aided drawing) but it still works well I think.

what kind of person is so pressed for time that they have to abbreviate "penny arcade" as "penny arc." I think that is the real question.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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